CHAPTER ONE
Magdalena Mania
Those familiar with the known and authenticated facts of Bachâs life will realize that certain episodes in this book are imaginary.âESTHER MEYNELL, The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach, 1925
Reanimated by History
If, as is likely, Anna Magdalena Bach died at home, it is perhaps fitting that she would be reborn there as a historical presence of global reach and lasting cultural significance. She must have lived her final years mostly in isolation, making music, when she did, probably in her room in a Leipzig inn, alone or together with her two youngest daughters, the remnants of her once large Leipzig family. Anna Magdalenaâs afterlife as a symbol, indeed purveyor, of the supposedly timeless family values fostered by musical domesticity elevated her to the status of the most beloved of the Bachs. In ways both enriching and fraught, her historical persona has exerted a tremendous, if often unacknowledged, influence on the musical lives of millions. Enshrined in history as the selfless soulmate of Johann Sebastian Bach, she became synonymous not just with spousal love and maternal sacrifice, but also with the intimate music of wives and of childrenâof those who sing and play in the home. The fascination with Anna Magdalena was ignited by musicological scholarship that made her 1725 Notebook available to a wide public in the first years of the twentieth century. The manuscriptâs first owner was in turn brought to life in novels, the most famous of which was marketed as non-fiction. Over the last one hundred years, a range of female writers found in Anna Magdalena not just a compelling historical character, but also a symbol of familial devotion. Anna Magdalena became the most famous wife of a great composer; through her Notebooks and through fictional and semifictional accounts of her, many came to believe that they knew her as a friend.
One can perhaps sense Anna Magdalena slipping from historical memory on the cover of the 1725 Notebook (see again td>), when, as weâve seen, her stepson Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, on taking possession of the Notebook probably after her death, filled in the gaps between the initials with her full name (although he didnât have room for all the letters of Magdalena). The most reliable archivist of the Bach family manuscripts inherited from his father (and, in this case, stepmother),1 Emanuel poignantly ensured that her full name was securely established for subsequent generations to see right on the cover. Any fears he may have harbored about the longevity of her legacyâand the obviousness of what the letters A. M. B. stood forâwere probably not misplaced. Anna Magdalena was referred to only once in print during her lifetime, in her husbandâs obituary of 1754, whose information on the deceasedâs family was written by Emanuel; from him we learn of Anna Magdalenaâs status as his fatherâs second wife, the year of their marriage, her own parentage, the musical occupation of her father, a list of her children, and the fact that she is not yet dead:
Johann Sebastian Bach took for his second wife, in Cöthen, in the year 1721, Miss Anna Magdalena, youngest daughter of Mr. Johann Caspar WĂŒlken [Wilcke], Court Trumpeter to the Duke of Weissenfels. Of thirteen children, namely, six sons and seven daughters, whom the latter bore him, the following six are still alive: 1) Gottfried Heinrich, born in 1724. 2) Elisabeth Juliane Fridrike, born 1726 and married to the Organist of St. Wenceslasâs in Naumburg, Mr. Altnikol, a skilled composer. 3) Johann Christoph Friedrich, born 1732, now Chamber Musician to the Imperial Count of Schamburg-Lippe. 4) Johann Christian, born 1735. 5) Johanna Carolina, born in 1737. 6) Regina Susanna, born 1742. The widow is still living.2
There is no acknowledgment of Anna Magdalenaâs own musical accomplishments: her fatherâs title is mentioned, but the more prestigious one she held between 1721 and 1723 as a court SĂ€ngerin in Cöthen is not. The professional standing of her only married daughterâs husband is similarly established. As one would expect, the Bach women appear only as the progeny and propertyâessentially the same thingâof men.
Anna Magdalena does receive her own entry in Ernst Ludwig Gerberâs 1790 biographical dictionary of musicians. The dictionary includes, as Gerber put it, information on the lives of both professionals and dilettantes; it is presumably under the latter category that she is praised as an âoutstanding sopranoâ (vortrefliche Sopranistin), for he writes that âshe died in 1757 [sic] without ever having made public use of her outstanding talent.â3 Gerber puts her death three years too early. The entry counts as the single published reference to Anna Magdalenaâs musical talent from an eighteenth-century source: only posthumously was she publicly praised as a singer in her own right. Gerberâs father, Heinrich Nicholas, had studied with Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, and as long as the personal connections built on student-teacher ties continued, her memory was kept alive. From Gerberâs wording we might infer that his father could have heard Anna Magdalena sing during his time in Leipzig from 1724 to 1726, just after she gave up her court post in Cöthen; Gerber would then have reported this to his lexicographer son, who could have assumed that her singing took place exclusively in the domestic setting. In his dictionary Gerber cited every musician he found listed in the catalog of C. P. E. Bachâs voluminous portrait collection, which included the now-lost painting of Anna Magdalena Bach; Emanuel referred to her as a Sopranistin (the same term used by Gerber) and as âJ. S. [Bachâs] second wifeâ (J. S. zweyte Frau).4 An assiduous historian, Gerber would have consulted all the relevant sources available to him in order to find out information about her performances; since none was to be found, he assumed she never sang in public in Leipzig, although she may well have done so, and had of course been a court singer.5 A note inserted into the front of the 1725 Notebook by Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, which had acquired the volume by around 1811, related that Anna Magdalena âis said to have sung very well.â6 Zelter must have learned of this talent from Gerberâs dictionary; he glossed the reference to Anna Magdalena found there in a note he wrote inside the cover of the Notebook: âAnna Magdalena, J. Seb. Bachâs second wife, whose name adorns [ziert] this book, is said to have been an outstanding singer [treffliche SĂ€ngerin].â Zelter also mooted the notion that the aria âWillst du dein Herz mir schenkenâ (If you want to give me your heart; BWV 518) found in the Notebook was a memento of the Bachsâ engagement, a testament to Johann Sebastianâs âlove lifeâ (BlĂŒthenleben). In the Notebook the song is preceded by its own title page calling it the Aria di Giovannini; Zelter hypothesized that this was the Italianized name adopted by Johann Sebastian in his self-styled role as amorous shepherd; Zelter also surmised (again, wrongly) that it was âin the hand of the belovedâ (von der Hand des Liebchens), since the script was âgirlish enoughâ (mĂ€dchenhaft genug) to be Anna Magdalenaâs. Zelter thought she had written out the music and had also sung it: her presence was to be felt in the song and in the Notebooks, even if her husband, the supposed author, was the real focus of Zelterâs historical attentions.
In light of the importance of Gerberâs book as a reference tool for historically minded Bach devotees such as Zelter, it is surprising that the founding document of Bach scholarship, Johann Nikolaus Forkelâs On Bachâs Life, Art, and Work (1802), makes no mention of Anna Magdalena at all, nor of Johann Sebastianâs first wife (and second cousin) Maria Barbara Bach.7 Forkel relied heavily on his correspondence with Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann, Anna Magdalenaâs two stepsons; perhaps neither passed on information about the Bach women to Forkel. To discuss the wives might have been at cross-purposesâor perhaps merely irrelevantâto the larger aim of Forkelâs project to present an image of Johann Sebastian Bach as fiercely independent, his genius needing no intellectual reinforcementânever mind logistical supportâfrom the women of the family. The explanatory note that Zelter inserted into the 1725 Notebook was a response to Forkel, especially to the claim that Johann Sebastian harbored no interest in love songs; for Zelter, âWillst du dein Herz mir schenkenâ provided proof to the contrary. Whereas Anna Magdalena was of little interest to Forkel, she seems to have been an alluring figure for Zelter; more important, however, than her association with the piece and her ownership of the Notebook was what the aria divulged about the man of feeling who, as Zelter believed, wrote it.
Anticipating the later spate of novels about her by female writers in the twentieth century, Anna Magdalenaâs first significant reappearance came, fittingly, in a scenario dreamed up by a woman. In the story âEin feste Burg ist unser Gottâ (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) by the prolific Elise Polko, first published in 1850 and subsequently in no fewer than fifty-two further editions before 1890 (and many more after that), Anna Magdalena is presented as a doting wife prone to emotional outbursts: industrious, reverent, beautiful, and beside herself with worry when her husband decides to accept an invitation to play an organ concert in Dresden at the behest of the Saxon elector.8 After introducing us to the great manâs sons, Polko turns to the lady of the house: âAt the right side of the cantor sat his wife, a powerful figure with clear, good features and pious eyes in a snow-white bonnet and brilliant neckerchief [Busentuch].â9 When Bach returns after his journey to the place she had previously decried as a âcity of sinâ (SĂŒndenstadt), she runs into his arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. The title of Polkoâs collection MĂ€rchen, Phantasien und Skizzen (Fairytales, Fantasies, and Sketches) makes no secret of the fact that the contents are fictional: in her first appearance in a book since the eighteenth century, Bachâs second wife is still a long way from being treated with the kind of attempts at historical verisimilitude made in later fiction involving her. Polko doesnât even know the wifeâs name, shackling her instead with the sturdy Germanic âGertrud.â
In A. E. Brachvogelâs fantastically ahistorical novel Friedemann Bach, published in 1858, she is at least called Anna Magdalena, appearing in the book to make peace between the austere father and his volatile son, or to decorate the Christmas tree in a classroom of the Thomasschule while next door in the Bachsâ living room Sebastian rants to Friedemann that he will not stoop to composing popular operas, since he aspires only to create great art.10 In Polkoâs story Anna Magdalena does not sing, and in Brachvogelâs novel she does so only at home and to the accompaniment of her husband. The Aria di Giovannini is used as a courtship song for one of the Bach daughters and as a sign of Friedemannâs impulsive romantic urges and general mental instability.11 After the mid-nineteenth century the song was available from several presses and had established itself as a favorite in the drawing room and, as we shall see in a moment, in the concert hall.12 Clearly, Brachvogel was capitalizing on the ariaâs widespread appeal in his novel; the song was the first big hit from the 1725 Notebook, but in print and performance no mention was made of its origins in Anna Magdalenaâs personal repertoire. The aura of the piece had to do with its attribution to Johann Sebastian and the way it could be heard to illuminate the tender side of this German genius. There was as yet no strong interest in, or particular attachment to, the original owner of the Notebook from which the song came.
With the growing interest in her husband, however, Anna Magdalena began to appear in print with increasing frequency, though always at Johann Sebastianâs side or in his shadow. The Prussian statesman and music historian Carl Heinrich Hermann Bitterâs two-volume Bach biography, which appeared in 1865, shows an affecting fondness for Anna Magdalena. Bitter devotes a dozen pages to her and her Notebooks. After mentioning her marriage in 1721, Bitter praises the âyoung wifeâ because âshe vigorously contributed her share to the works and activity of her famous husband.â13 Anna Magdalenaâs vital role as copyist is lauded for the first time, and the Notebooks are treated with touching intimacy. For Bitter, her manuscriptsâ importance lay chiefly in the access they provided to her husbandâs âlegacy of love and sincere affection toward his wife.â14 Yet Anna Magdalena also appears full of desire for her spouse and the music she receives from him: the songs of the 1725 Notebook are the result of âthe personal relationship between the twoâ expressed âin the most tender manner.â Given the popularity of the Aria di Giovannini, it is not surprising that Bitter reflects on the songâs biographical and emotional significance, suggesting there was more to it than the naive musical charms that had made it a German favorite.15
The songâs text prompted Bitter to wonder, as Zelter had before him, whether the song could be a testament to the courtship between âthe youthful singerâ and âthe strict contrapuntalistâ;16 the nineteenth-century thinking was that the romance would have been conducted clandestinely, since Johann Sebastian had only recently been widowed.17 The four strophes are all sung to the same disarming melody, the first stanza setting out the perilous thrill of furtive affection:
If you want to give me your heart,
then begin secretly,
so that our thoughts
can be guessed by no one.
The love we share must
at all times be concealed,
so lock the greatest joys
up in your heart.
Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,
so fang es heimlich an,
daĂ unser beider Denken
niemand erraten kann.
Die Liebe muĂ bei beiden
allzeit verschwiegen sein,
Drum schlieĂ die gröĂten Freuden
in deinem Herzen ein.
Though Bitterâs biographical scenario founders on philological grounds (the copy is not in Anna Magdalenaâs hand, but in that of an anonymous scribe), the songâs story of love proved an appealing one that many readers and subsequent writers have been happy to believe in. Bitter agrees with Zelterâs identification of the handwriting of âWillst du dein Herz mir schenken,â seeing Anna Magdalenaâs copying-out of the piece as a reaffirmation of the pairâs loving bond and its covert origins.18 For Bitter, the music in the Notebook connects us to a previously ignored world of feeling: âThe entir...